Hour Glass of Climate Change (Adobe Stock)

Intro of Topic

What did I study?

• Why are some Americans more prone to worry about climate change? Based on Perceived Harm to Different Groups and Believed Timing of when Climate Change will Harm People Living in the United States.

Believed Outcomes

• I believe that the more an American believes climate change will harm living things at a more intense level, the more likely they are to worry about climate change at a higher level.
• I believe that the timing of when Americans believe climate change will harm people living in America will also affect their worry level.

Intended Audience

This project is intended for a general audience who is interested to learn more about climate change’s impact a person’s worry levels and why.

Dataset

The data is from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. The data set I will be analyzing is a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults aged 18 and older from October 2023 that contains 1,003 observations. This data set has 10 important variables:

• Outcome: level of worry
• Believed to effect worry levels (Predictors): level of harm for four specific groups (personal, US, future generations, and plants and animals), and when climate change will begin to harm the US
• Control variables: happening, caused by human activities, generation, and education.

The model I used was Ordinal Logistic Regression (OLR) since all of my important variables are ordered categorical variables. OLR is a statistical method that can predict the likelihood of an ordered categorical outcome (like low, medium, high) based on independent variables (Cheng Hua, 2021). We also added the control variables to make sure any changes that are in the results are because of the variables that are being tested (the level of harm to each groups) and not something else (like education).

Previous Research

Unfortunately, there is little to no research on perceived harm level for different groups or the belief of when climate change will start harming and how they affect worry. One study that pushed me to the idea to study harm level between different groups was one where they found people worried about their children facing the consequences of climate change but not themselves (Threadgold, 2012). I wanted to see if that held up with perceived harm levels for different groups (personal, US, future generations, and plants and animals). In regards of timing, there is a report that found that 39% of American respondents believed they were being affected by climate change right now (Narawad and Julian Wettengel, 2024). Thus, I decided to investigate the association of timing with worry as well.

Last December, I researched the same question: ‘Why are some Americans more prone to worry about climate change?’ with the same survey but from 2022. However, I was focusing on demographics (race, gender, and education) rather than perceived potential harm or the believed timing of when climate change will harm people in the US. In regards to education, I found Americans with a Bachelor’s or higher were more likely to worry about climate change. For race, Black respondents were less likely to worry. Lastly, there was no difference in worry for men and women.

Worry About Climate Change

Harm Level of Groups by Climate Change

Explanation

Based on the Yale Survey that took place in October of 2023, a majority of Americans are worried about climate change in some sense.

• 72% of American respondents said they were somewhat or very worried about climate change.
• Respondents who chose not very worried or not at all worried made up only 28%.

When looking at the perceived harm that each group can face:

• Respondents overwhelming believe future generations as well as plants and animals will be harmed “a great deal” by climate change (over 60% for both groups).
• For climate change harming people in the United States, respondents were more likely to choose ‘a great deal’ or ‘a moderate amount’ (totals up to 70%). A great deal was the highest response though.
• Though respondents believe climate change will harm other groups severely, they are not as likely to believe climate change will harm them personally as much. 62% of believe climate change will harm them ‘only a little’ or a ‘moderate amount, but drops to 18% for ’a great deal.’

Which variables are actually significant?

What does this mean?

American respondents who were more likely to be worried about climate change were those who believe climate change:

• will harm them personally a great deal, a moderate amount, or only a little
• is harming the people living in the United States right now, or will within the next 10 years, or interestingly in 100 years.

The belief of harm level for people in the US, future generations, as well as plants and animals does not impact to the respondents worry level as was assumed. Additionally, the results for when people believed climate change was going to harm the US were somewhat surprising as well since 100 years was a predictor and 25 or 50 years was not.

Probability for Personal Harm and Worry

Probability for the Belief of When Climate Change will Harm by Worry

Findings

As the personal harm levels intensify, the likelihood of respondents becoming increasingly worried (being in a higher level of worry) rises.

When focusing on the timing of Right Now and 10 years, we can clearly see that respondents are more likely to fall into a higher worry level. Something similar happened to the timing of 100 years as well. From Never to 100 years, we see that worry levels did increase!

Conclusion

In conclusion, the results of this study were surprising. American respondents who were more prone to worry about climate change were those who were focused on their own well-being and believed they would be harmed personally in some capacity (a great deal, a moderate amount, or only a little). Other groups that could potentially be harmed, such as people living in the US, future generations, and plants and animals did not have a strong impact on the respondents’ worry levels as expected.

Other groups that could potentially be harmed, such as people living in the US, future generations, and plants and animals did not have a strong impact on the respondents’ worry levels as expected.

Additionally, Americans who believe climate change will harm people living in the US right now, in the next ten years, or in 100 years are also more prone to worry about climate change. Originally, I thought from 100 years to Right now that worry would gradually increase, but that was not the case!

To further study both harm personally and when climate change will harm, I found the probabilities of the worry levels for each. I found as the personal harm level increased from “no harm at all” to “a great deal of harm”, the probability of having in a higher worry level also increased. Moreover, I found that as the timing of harm became closer to present day, the probability of having a higher worry level did not necessarily have a gradual increase. The probability of having a higher worry level did increase as the timing of harm did become more present (from harming in 25 years to right), however, there was also an increase of having a somewhat higher worry level from “never” to “100 years.”

Looking Forward

Overall, more research regarding the association of climate change perceived harms to different groups and worry needs to de done to try and replicate these findings.

Next steps for this project would be to study if perceived personal harm and believed timing may lead someone to be more proactive about being eco-friendly in order to soothe their worries. Additionally, if so, does it actually help reduce their worry?

I think it would also be interesting to know if someone has already been affected my climate change and at what level (not at all, only a little, a moderate amount or a great deal). I think the results would be interesting to explore with worry.

References

• Cheng Hua, Dr.Youn-Jeng Choi. “Companion to BER 642: Advanced Regression Methods.” Chapter 12 Ordinal Logistic Regression, 29 Apr. 2021, bookdown.org/chua/ber642_advanced_regression/ordinal-logistic-regression.html.
• Lindsey, Rebecca, and Luann Dahlman. “Climate Change: Global Temperature.” NOAA Climate.Gov, 18 Jan. 2024, www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature.
• Narawad, Aniket, and Julian Wettengel. “Global Surveys Show People’s Growing Concern about Climate Change.” Clean Energy Wire, 12 Nov. 2024, www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/global-surveys-show-peoples-growing-concern-about-climate-change#:~:text=The%20group%20of%20countries%20surveyed,income%20are%20slightly%20more%20concerned.
• Threadgold, Steven. “‘I reckon my life will be easy, but my kids will be buggered’: Ambivalence in young people’s positive perceptions of individual futures and their visions of environmental collapse.” Journal of Youth Studies, vol. 15, no. 1, Feb. 2012, pp. 17–32, https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2011.618490.
• “What Is Climate Change?” United Nations, United Nations, www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change. Accessed 10 Dec. 2024.
• “Yale Climate Opinion Maps 2023.” Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, 10 December 2024.